Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an inking unit for a printing press, having a plurality of inking rollers for feeding a required ink quantity from an ink fountain to a printing plate, at least one of the inking rollers being additionally capable of performing an axial movement during a press run, and a drive for driving the inking rollers axially via push rods and rocking levers.
The published German Patent Document DE 34 24 721 C2 discloses an inking unit with a drive of the foregoing general type for axially moving inking rollers, and by which a stroke movement is transmissable via a cam disk to a lever which, in turn, transmits the stroke movement to a respective one of the ink rollers via a push rod. The stroke can be set or adjusted between a maximum and a minimum via a ball joint. This conventional drive has a multiplicity of wear locations, so that no uniform axial stroke can be achieved permanently. Roller stopping periods may occur, particularly in the reversal region of the axial movement, which may result in a nonuniform supply of ink to the printing plate.
Proceeding from this state of the prior art, it is accordingly an object of the invention of the instant application to provide an inking unit for a printing press with a drive for driving inking rollers axially, the drive being able to perform a reversible axial stroke movement, largely free of play and with little wear, by relatively simple means.